Actions, Not Words - It's Good to Make Mistakes

I've just noticed this in The Temptation of Jesus - Luke 4: "Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil".   

I think that we can take some encouragement from this. There are times when we feel we're up against all kinds of difficulties - e.g. barriers that get in the way of our works, and we attribute these to Satan; so then we pray to our God to protect us from him. From personal experience this kind of situation might also lead to self-questioning - "I keep taking the wrong path and seem to be getting a lot of things wrong" type of thing. This can then cause us to ask whether that means we're not led by the Spirit; whereas maybe it's realistic to consider that it's actually sometimes God leading us toward the precipice, perhaps as a test, perhaps to show us what we're up against? Are we inclined to forget the Victory has already been won?

As an adjunct, here's a situation where Jesus is led by the Spirit toward a place where the devil can tempt him with all kinds of inducements, and in effect offers Jesus an easy way out. The devil then cleverly uses Scripture to try and justify Jesus jumping so that He'll be caught by angels. Does he sometimes do that with us too - perhaps giving us a dodgy interpretation of something we've read in order that we might confuse ourselves or, worse, confuse someone else? Is this the reason that, sometimes, people develop many different tests of their own before doing what the Lord has laid on their hearts? Or might it be the case that the tests are a simple device to get out of what they've promised to do? The thing here is that Jesus followed the Spirit into the desert and there he met with the devil. He didn't stay at home with his mug of hot, sweet tea watching Corrie. In the desert he resisted the devil and thus demonstrated His integrity - ok this isn't what actually happened, apart from anything else it's an anachronism but you can see what I'm driving at here, I hope.

Words, words, words… Is there something you promised to God that you would do that is still waiting to be done? Consider before God whether it’s time to take action and how. (This paragraph taken rom today's Scripture Union Notes)

God bless

John
PS I'm nobody, certainly not a theologian and I've almost certainly got everything wrong above according to conventional biblical wisdom. If I have done that today then I apologise - but I suspect that if that's the case then perhaps making a mistake is a good thing because it may well have prompted you or someone else to think - we should all be prepared to make mistakes. All of which reminds me that there's urgent stuff I must now do for Outside Light and have been putting off. Nobody's perfect ;o)